


Marks On The Calendar

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2013-11-13
Packaged: 2018-01-01 10:05:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1043533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the hunt, details need to be taken care of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marks On The Calendar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [subwaycars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/subwaycars/gifts).



Tick, tick, tick. Pause. _Bring!_

The noise woke Hansel from a dead sleep, and he shot upright in his pallet on the floor. He gasped like a fish floundering on a riverbank, then reached for his bag full of syringes. Gretel's eyes snapped open as well, but her tension eased when she saw that he was already getting one of the holy water doses to inject himself with. Hansel was covered in black and blues, his ribs taped tightly with bandages. Gretel only had a split lip this time; the witch they had hunted had been focused on beating Hansel with her claws, her vivid red eyes wide with hate. She had completely ignored Gretel, which is what led to her demise. Wielding the crossbow, Gretel would have been completely unscathed, except the witch had kicked out and flailed her four legs, catching Gretel in the face when she approached to chop off her head. Hansel wound up delivering the fatal blow when Gretel was kicked aside.

Gretel smiled at Hansel and snuggled deeper into the bed. Her scabbed lip stretched and nearly broke open again, but she ignored the pain of it. "Go to sleep, Hansel. We've a long day in the morning, and you'll need your rest."

"Then I should've been in the bed, Gretel. I'm sore enough as it is, and the floor isn't helping."

Her smile was sweetly mercenary. "It'll keep your ribs in place as you lie on your back, you know. You'd sink into the feathers here and break a rib the rest of the way."

Hansel snorted and reset his timer. Tick, tick, tick. The sound was comforting, in a way. He'd heard it for so long now that silence was unfamiliar and terrifying. "Next town, after they pay us, I'm getting a bed, got it? My back can't take much more of this."

"Better than rocks in the ground, you big baby."

"Not better than a feather bed," he snapped back, creakily lying back down again. Hansel groaned at the pain that shot through his lower back and tried to shift to a spot that generated less pain for him.

Gretel sighed. Mocking him was one thing, but she didn't actually like seeing him hurt. "Fine, then, you fucking baby. Get up. We can share the bed for now. But if your rib cracks, the doctor's fee is coming out of your half of the reward money."

He gingerly climbed in next to Gretel and sighed in pleasure as he sank into the downy mattress beside her. "Ah. Much better than the floor."

She tucked in the blanket around him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Ass," she said affectionately. "Get some sleep. We need your attention at its best to restock supplies."

Hansel smiled and nodded. "Yeah, okay. I hear ya." He was already halfway falling asleep when he felt her arms loop around him protectively. They were all each other had, and had to look out for each other.

In the morning, he was polite enough not to shoot Gretel an "I told you so" no matter how much he wanted to. Mostly because she was counting out the remaining coins they had on hand to pay for the inn before they met with the mayor. Hansel untaped his ribs, checking to see if any of his cuts were infected by the grimy bandage, then taped them tightly back into place with a groan. Gretel looked up with a frown, then swept their coins into her purse. "We should add new bandages to our supplies list. I don't think those will last out another washing."

"I'd rather spend money on the cold iron arrowheads," he replied, nodding toward her crossbow. "I can find rowan and ash in the forest for the arrows, but the iron needs to be forged and we don't have the tools for that on our own."

"Or the holy water you need," she pointed out, nodding toward his pack of syringes. Hansel grunted, nearly lifting a shoulder to shrug. He obviously thought better of it at her pointed stare and set jaw. "You need it, Hansel."

"I know," he said finally, pushing himself up to a standing position. "And we need food. Hunting's been pretty scarce, so we're low on foodstuff."

"I've got a list of things in mind," she agreed.

Meeting with the town's mayor, Hansel let Gretel take the lead as usual. She had a far more dramatic flair in proving their claims of a dead witch, slinging a bag with the severed head onto his desk. The man gibbered and backed away from the severed head in terror, crashing into his wall and begging them to take it away. Hansel closed up the stained canvas bag with a curt nod as Gretel started to recount the misdeeds of the witch in question, driving home the point that the man owed the two of them the promised reward. "We still have the body in a wagon in the back, if you don't trust seeing just the head," Hansel added when the mayor's lower lip quivered. His eyes widened and he looked between the siblings with a renewed spike of fear. "I can bring it in here if you like. I assure you, the rest of the body is just as hideous."

"N-n-no, that's quite all right," the elderly man stammered, pale as paper. "I'll get you the reward, and you can burn it as you promised."

It was only when they were far from the village that Gretel gave Hansel a shove. "You enjoyed that little show back there. 'We still have the body,'" she intoned, mocking his words to the mayor. She grinned and skipped out of range of his return blow. "'The rest of the body is just as hideous,'" she continued in that mockingly low tone.

Hansel snickered and then leaned over to give her a shove. This time he connected. "There has to be _some_ perks to the job."

"There's the satisfaction of knowing that they're dying," Gretel pointed out.

"And getting paid." Hansel added, patting his coin purse.

"The notoriety is good," she added, grinning. "More business, more witches to kill, that much less evil in the world."

"Any leads on the next one, then?" he asked, settling into a comfortable pace beside her.

"No, but I'm sure something will turn up. Something always does."

That was certainly the case. It could be in the next village or the one after that. Sooner or later, they heard rumors of witches and their evil deeds, and there they went. It was like clockwork that way, and as dependable as watching days pass on the calendar.

The End


End file.
